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Swimming is not my weakest event (running is), but I'm not the leader in the swim field either. My inability to win the swim is incongruent with my confidence and experience in long open-water swims. I swam a lot in high school. Most summers, I do twice-weekly 2000m lake swims. I just don't seem to …

After critical evaluation of Xterra 2018, I'm making a big change. Crossfit. My training partner, whose talents and strengths I've admired for years, is a crossfit advocate. He's actually a trainer but his expertise is partially based on his impressive weight loss of 100lbs. But that's old news. He's kept the weight off for several …

Warm jacket, dry shoes, protective hat, long pants. The magic of outdoor adventure is that comfort is paramount. It's a chance to ignore the voice that wonders "how do I look?" It's a life free from mirrors. The trail is a place where the constraints of fashion can be ignored in favour of unbridled comfort. …

Throughout the trip, I marvelled at the availability of clean water in Scotland. Most of the rivers and creeks are potable at the source! Our plan was to drink from the fast-flowing rivers and carry water when we weren't sure how far to the next source. To that end, some days my bike was laden …

Emerging from our hobbit house and blinking into the Scottish sunlight, the first task was to pack all the groceries and supplies onto our bikes. Scotland Highlands wasn't our first bikepacking trip. We'd attempted the Colorado Trail two years earlier and a critical lesson learned was lighter is better. The more you know, the less …